Passing Afternoon
by Ellyrianna
Summary: Yuffie won't believe in marriage until Leon asks her to, or Rinoa beats her to it. Squffie.


**Passing Afternoon**

_and she's chosen where to be though she's lost her wedding ring_

Yuffie didn't believe in marriage.

She told Rinoa that when she asked her, smiling sweetly as she twirled around in her optic-white wedding dress, all rustling lace and big brown eyes peeking out under piles of veil netting. Aerith was hemming the skirt, humming between the needle pursed in her lips.

Yuffie, sprawled out over the couch in the library with as much eloquence as a tavern wench, shorts slashed up to here and arms crossed under her midriff top, couldn't keep the sour expression off of her face.

Rinoa's enthusiasm faltered under Yuffie's ire.

"Why?" she asked tentatively, like she didn't really want to know the answer.

"You shouldn't have to sign a contract to prove you love someone," Yuffie bluntly replied.

The balcony door opened and Leon walked, weapon tossed cavalierly over his shoulder, the hanger of a garment bag clutched in his gloved hand.

He met Yuffie's eyes for an interminable second, and then turned viciously aside, throwing his suit onto the table and storming back out of the room.

Yuffie stood and slammed out through the first floor door.

--

Leon traced his finger up the smooth curve of her spine, his eyes dark, his smile barely more than a suggestion. Yuffie pressed flush up against him, barely a sheet between them, her hair sweaty and stringy and sticking to her neck and his.

The room was cold, the fire in the hearth long since gone to ash. The embers barely glowed among the cooling coals. Radiant Garden's winters were frigid and impossible, but Leon and Yuffie had figured out ways to mitigate that problem years ago.

Four years was a long time for anyone, especially for someone like Leon, someone inherently cold and withdrawn. He attributed it entirely to her, and he told her this often. He said it as he nuzzled her chin in the darkness of the waterways, and the warmth of their bedroom, and in the alcoves of the bailey.

She didn't wear his ring on her finger or his name on hers. She didn't need to.

Yuffie kissed under Leon's jaw and tangled her hand in his thick hair. The winter couldn't touch them.

--

A few days before the wedding, Aerith asked Yuffie's opinion on a dress to wear. Yuffie had endured this ritual for every other occasion and couldn't come up with a reasonable excuse to avoid it this time around. Complete bitterness wouldn't sway Aerith.

Yuffie managed to get through the first ten minutes without exploding, but when Aerith lightly commented that she didn't want to wear pink because that would clash with the flower selection Rinoa had made, Yuffie gave up. She shouted, "Pink is your favorite color. If you want to wear pink, wear pink. Screw Rinoa's damn flower selection!"

As she made her way down to the privacy of the bailey swallowing her tears out of pride, Yuffie wondered if Leon had ever given one thought to flowers and the way they were best arranged. She wondered if Rinoa had shoved some in his face and cooed "Gorgeous!" and if he had nodded and smiled, or if he had gritted his teeth and forced himself not to shred them with one swift move.

He had brought her flowers, once. They had been purple and orange and red, clashing colors that seared the eyes. He'd tossed them casually into her lap as she sharpened her shurikens and then stalked off to train, as if pretending he didn't care about them negated the fact that he'd given them to her.

She had pressed them in a book when she was sure no one was looking.

--

Leon rationalized going back to Rinoa with what he had always refused to give Yuffie.

"She wore it for all this time," he snapped when Yuffie started yelling at him again. "She's worn it since I gave it to her, since we were eighteen, and now I'm twenty-eight and she's been waiting and what are you?"

"I'm your –" Yuffie faltered, the purpose in her voice trailing away.

What was she, exactly? She felt like she was more than his girlfriend – four years meant more than just a girl who was your friend, right? – but her hands, bare as they were, showed that she wasn't his fiancée or his wife. Lover wasn't appropriate, because while they made love, and they shared love, there was so much more to it than that.

Leon folded his arms and stepped back from her, slowly, nodding with understanding that even he did not have before. "Exactly," he said, so softly that at first she didn't hear him. "Exactly."

--

Yuffie wasn't going to go to the wedding.

She hadn't spoken to Leon in months, not since Rinoa flashed the ring he'd given her demurely to everyone at Aerith's birthday party. They'd hardly talked before then, but they'd managed short, monotonous phrases and pale half-moon remarks. Now they looked up at each other and looked away.

Yuffie strained to overcome her hurt and her anger and her overwhelming sadness, fought to tell Leon how much she loved him even though it had been almost a year since he'd touched her last.

Walking by the chapel the day before, lost in drifting thoughts, she peered in and saw Leon and Rinoa miming the ceremony. Rinoa radiated warm happiness. The sun seemed to pour out of her. She bounced around and giggled, her laugh echoing off of the cavernous walls. She winked coyly at Leon, tugged at the chain she wore around her neck, fingering the rings there.

And Leon stood on the other end of the room from her, turned slightly away, arms crossed and head back, looking up at the stained glass ceiling.

"Squall!" Rinoa called, waving her hand at him. He looked over, and as he did, he saw Yuffie standing in the doorway.

Yuffie turned away before she could regret herself again.

--

"Please don't be angry with me," Rinoa begged Yuffie quietly one day on the roof.

Yuffie was up there to get away from everything underneath her, and yet somehow underneath had risen up.

She didn't turn around to face Rinoa. "Shut up," she said, not in the mood for pleasantries.

Rinoa persisted, which was what Rinoa did. Someone had told her that that was what had won her Leon all those years ago. That was what had won Yuffie Leon four years ago. Five. Did she count the last one if they weren't together for it? Did it make a difference?

"I've been waiting for him for such a long time." Rinoa's voice was strained. She was honest. She was pure. But all the goodness within her didn't change what she had done. It wasn't wrong to her, but it was so unbelievably wrong to Yuffie.

"I have, too." Yuffie kicked her shoe out over the edge of the roof and watched the swirling waterfalls below her, churning in and out. "But you have the ring. That's what makes the difference, right? You've got his ring."

For a long time, it was silent – so silent that Yuffie thought Rinoa had gone as quietly as she had come.

Then, almost as if she hadn't said it at all, Rinoa whispered, "And you've got his heart."

--

It was almost twilight, and everyone else was in the chapel.

Floors and floors above, Yuffie opened up the book she had pressed Leon's flowers in ages ago. They slipped out from between the pages, paper-thin, brittle to the touch. One crumbled immediately to dust as it hit the floor. She set the book down on the windowsill and dropped to her knees, touching the browned edges of the crinkled petals.

"Stand up," Leon said from her door.

She turned around sharply, the flowers inadvertently crushed in her sudden fist. "What the hell are you doing here?"

He wasn't in his suit. He was wearing his same ratty white T-shirt, his same black pants, same gloves and same necklace. His hair wasn't brushed and his face wasn't washed.

"Stand up," he repeated.

Yuffie stood, her hands trembling, legs surprisingly strong.

"You're supposed to be downstairs. Getting married." When this elicited no response, she nearly yelled, "Did you have a seizure or something? Sudden hemorrhage to the brain? Amnesia?"

Digging his pocket, he pulled out something clenched in his fist. "Catch," he said, and tossed her something across the room that caught the light.

His ring landed in her gloved palm, the same snarling lion that had hung around Rinoa's neck for ten years gleaming right in front of her.

"What'd you do, kill her and steal it off her corpse?" she asked, bewildered.

"I asked for it back."

Yuffie stared at him, dumbfounded.

He shrugged noncommittally and crossed the room to her. "I didn't want to get married."

He took the ring out of her hand, unsnapped the clasp on her glove, and held it up to each of her fingers. She snatched it away from him.

"Are you kidding me? Almost an entire year when we don't even talk and now you're telling me you're ditching all this crap you've done and taking back your fiancée's engagement ring? What the hell, Leon?" she shouted.

"There it is," he said quietly, and nodded, satisfied. He put his hand on the back of Yuffie's neck, and, with that bare suggestion of a smile, kissed her the way he should have been kissing Rinoa downstairs.

Yuffie stomped on his foot and pushed him away. As usual, he was unfazed by her tantrum. "I'm still not getting it."

He sighed deeply, like this was a very unexpected request. "I gave her that ring when we were eighteen. Now I'm twenty-eight. I don't want the things I wanted when I was eighteen anymore. I don't want her anymore."

Yuffie cocked her head to one side, and took a slight step toward him. She put her hands on his shoulders. "And you're just realizing this now?"

"Better late than never," he replied, and kissed her again.

It was almost twilight, and everyone was in the chapel except for Leon and Yuffie.


End file.
